Festival of Spirit brings world to Sandpoint
Tibetan monks are rare in American communities so their spiritual teachings aren’t as available as the sermons at the local Presbyterian or Baptist churches. Some people believe Americans need exposure to a greater variety of cultures and spiritual thoughts. That’s why Sandpoint’s Morning Light Foundation is bringing to Sandpoint this week five days of films, music and speakers from around the world.
The foundation’s Festival of the Spirit runs Thursday through Sunday, mostly at the Panida Theater. It includes sand painting by visiting Tibetan monks, films on Native American beliefs and spiritual practices in 24 countries covering six continents and discussions on personal spiritual searches.
“The point is to showcase films and other works of art that are not readily accessible in the mainstream and to expose different religious traditions and universal themes,” says Deb McShane, a Morning Light Foundation volunteer. “We’re interested in providing an avenue to spiritual awareness and growth.”
The Morning Light Foundation was the idea of Coldwater Creek founder and CEO Dennis Pence. Several ventures operate under the foundation’s umbrella, including a bookstore and the Morning Light Press, a small publishing operation in Sandpoint. No romance novels or spy thrillers bear the Morning Light name. The company prefers books that address the human condition or spiritual searches or personal transformations.
“We want to publish books on all different paths,” Deb says.
It also wanted to reach out to people through films, concerts and speakers. Parabola Magazine, a quarterly journal out of New York on myth and tradition, started the Cinema of the Spirit film festival in 2000. Morning Light brought the festival to Sandpoint.
The films were so well received that Morning Light offered to co-sponsor this year’s festival. The foundation’s participation allowed the event to grow and travel. Audiences from Maine to Georgia to California and Idaho are hearing about Richard Alpert, a former Harvard University professor and co-author with Timothy Leary who shares the spiritual path Alpert has followed since surviving a stroke in 1997.
Alpert is Ram Dass now, a spiritual teacher, author and lecturer. Audiences are seeing his story in the documentary “Ram Dass: Fierce Grace.” They’re also seeing “Chac: the Rain God,” a film about 13 Native American men on a quest to save their village from a drought. They find their beliefs and sanity challenged.
Other films in this year’s festival are “Baraka,” showing religious rituals throughout the world; “Kundun,” the story of the 14th Dalai Lama; “The Fool of the World and the Flying Ship,” an animated Russian folktale about a peasant boy and the czar’s daughter; “Say Amen, Somebody,” a rousing documentary on Gospel music; and “Meetings with Remarkable Men,” the story of a man’s search for enlightenment through the Middle East and Central Asia.
Sandpoint’s festival will include a concert by pianist George Dunnebacke playing the spiritually enlightening music of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, a discussion among film-makers Mickey Lemle and George Nierenberg and comparative religion professor Ravi Ravindra on their spiritual searches, and the Tibetan monks of Drepung Loseling Monastery chanting and sand painting.
The festival will open Thursday at 3 p.m. on the Coldwater Creek Bridge with the monks beginning their painting and end Sunday at noon on the same bridge as the monks dismantle it to symbolize impermanence.
“It’s an opening and a sharing. We’re not pointing anyone in any particular direction,” Deb says. “People have an interest in spiritual matters. A survey in Time Magazine found that 10 million adults practice some type of meditation. We’re working with that.”
Pancakes for Kim
Remember Kim Corey, the Cataldo mother and former Idaho State Police dispatcher diagnosed with ovarian cancer? Faith Baptist Church in Spokane has organized a pancake breakfast for Dec. 11, 8 a.m. to noon, and a craft sale/bake sale the same day until 3 p.m. to raise money for Kim’s medical expenses.
Kim’s medical insurance helps pay for her traditional treatments but doesn’t cover alternative treatments she’s undergoing in Reno, Nev. The alternative treatment starts at $15,000.
Faith Baptist is at 2804 E. Euclid Ave. Breakfast costs $5 per person. For details, call (509)484-3245.